Historian Joe Todd interviewed World War II veteran Harry Guterman on Dec. 9, 1988 in Tulsa. Harry Guterman was born Feb. 13, 1925 in a town near Lodz, Poland. His parents were Chaim and Helen (Rawska) Guterman. His father was in the textile business, which had been the family profession for generations.

By Joe Todd

Historian

T: What type of house did you live in the ghetto?

G: When they put us tighter and tighter together because more and more people came into the ghetto, people died out and everyday we took people out to be buried. We lived in a house, which was actually on the border of the Aryan side. In the backyard we had the fence and always had guard walking up and down and watching no one was jumping, smuggling himself out of the ghetto. The house I lived in would normally be for one family and we had 4 families living there. There was no toilet and used a pail and it was disposed of it. We were in one room had had my sister, mother, grandmother and myself in a room about 20 by 10 feet. We had to sleep, eat and go to the bathroom in the room. We had to live in that room. We had a sheet hanging across for a little bit of privacy but the smell was bad and people did die from typhus and dysentery.

T: What excuse did the Germans use to force the Jews into the ghetto?

G: They thought the Jews were a menace to the world, that is what he wrote in Mein Kampf and had a plan to exterminate the Jews, but not plan to exterminate them to that extent. I think he had in mind to rid the Jews out of Germany but not realize the Jewish people in Germany had very good positions and had helped Germany quite a bit in their economy. The best example is a man like Albert Einstein left Germany for the United States and it was crazy to deport a person like this. But at the beginning people could travel out of Germany. They just wanted to get rid of the Jews, it was different when he came into Eastern Europe and it was a slaughter. Thousands and thousands of people were taken out of the Ghetto just to be shot. That ghetto lasted for about four years.

T: When did you enter the ghetto in Lodz?

G: I entered the ghetto in the end of March 1940. Here again you were lucky they assigned you a place to live and in that house were people you never knew before. They had a house you were going to live and when you got there, there were already three or four people living there. It was only a matter of someone getting it organized and putting you in the right room. There was tremendous hope that got us confused in a way. We never thought such a thing would happen later on. Nobody would even think they would kill women and children or anything like that. They would be taken out to forced labor. You worked because they had this huge war effort. We thought they don’t enough people and had the people in working camps what they called Arbeits Laga. They did put a lot of Polish people and other people in other countries with the exception of the Jewish people, they had a different plan for them. In the begging in the ghetto we all worked but the food rationing was so small and the hygienic living and this whole and hundreds of people were dying and had to be taken out to be buried.

T: Crystal Night, was that just in Germany?

G: Yes. That was on Nov. 9.

T: Were you aware of that in Poland?

G: Yes, we knew they burned Jewish Synagogues and broke windows in Jewish stores and took a lot to concentration camps.

T: When did you leave the ghetto?

G: I didn’t leave voluntarily. They would take the young ones, the ones that could still walk straight and they took us to Auschwitz.

T: How did they take you?

G: By train.

T: Describe the trip.

G: I was in some groups ready to go but somehow I was able to sneak out being I was a pretty fast kid and could move fast and got myself out of a couple of situations where they just gathered up a bunch of people and today you go and put them in one area like the city jail and in two or three days a transport went out straight. They were sent straight to Auschwitz and Berkenou. We came in with a transport of maybe 3,000 and only 400 went to the camp and maybe 3,000 went to the gas chambers. When we arrived in Auschwitz it was right and left. When the guy said go to the left that meant you went to the camp. We didn’t know what all this meant. We thought they were sorting people out for various work and various camps. We didn’t know they were going to gas thousands of people a day.

T: Why were they gassing the thousands of people?

G: They were no good for the industry any more. Older people and children.

T: They were gassing children?

G: Yes. If a mother would hold a child and not want to let the child go they were put in the Himmel Strasse. Himmel Strasse means Heavenly Street and sent to the crematoriums. I was also in one of the groups where they de-loused us and we got the showers. You couldn’t take anything with you and when you came out the other side they had different clothes for you. We were the lucky ones, when we turned the water on water came out, not gas. That was the way it happened. The people they planned to be gassed were in a different column. When they got into the showers gas came out.

T: Did they put you in train cars to go to Auschwitz?

G: Yes.

T: Describe the train cars?

G: The car was like a cattle car and we were packed in. They told us to take everything with you, all your valuables. People were very optimistic and why would we take clothing. We were going on a long trip and took things we would need.

T: Any deaths on the trip?

G: I don’t know how many deaths because you couldn’t even move. It was a terrible trip. When we arrived at Auschwitz we still didn’t know what it was. There was a big sign. “Arbeit Machs Frei,” works make free. We thought we were coming to an Arbeits Lagan, they promised us we were going to Germany and work and be in a camp and have food and be cleaner. These are things they tired to tell the people so they didn’t realize where they were going or there would be a panic and not go and figjht and go in the trains. When we did come in to Aus and opened up the doors and everyone start falling out they told us where we were and told us we came here to be killed or go into the camp. They told us it was an extermination camp and Aus was one of the largest extermination camps.

T: When you realized what it was what was your reaction?

G: I didn’t have my sister or mother with me. I didn’t know what happened to them until we got in to the camp. I met up with an uncle of mine by coindince and he told me they were burning people and I couldn’t figure out he meant. What is happening to my family? He didn’t know if he went to the camp or straight to the gas chamber. There was nothing you could do. You were in the camp surrounded by guards. They put in a gypsy camp and in the gypsy camp I don’t know how many hundred of thousands they slaughtered all in one day. They cut their throats and when we went into those barracks there was blood all over the place. They had to make room. They were killing them so fast they couldn’t burn them fast enough as we arrived, they had to make room. It was like a factory and production had to go on and that production was to kill people. I got in the campground and met a relative of mine and he told me that Uncle Max was here and was a cook, which was an excellent job. I found him and had been there a few months and told me the story and said he wanted me out of there. He told me that transports would not come into Auschwitz fast enough and they would run out of people to kill and they could come in to the camp and block off a bunch of people and herd them to the chambers. Production had to be done.

T: How many were being killed?

G: I’d say 2 ½ to 3 million people. Every day they killed people, thousands. They burned them and gassed them. They figured a bullet was too expensive. Everything was economical, a bullet cost 15 cents and gas was half a cent. The consequences of seeing people killing, killing and killing and how the soldiers reacted I’m sure was a question in their mind. On the other side they pulled the bodies out and the people on the other side waiting would never see that. When you pack 300 or 400 people in to a room and be killed they carried bodies out the other side. This was going on day and night.

T: Did you work in the camp?

G: Yes.

T: What type of work?

G: All kinds of work, they farmed out the people to the factories to the buildings and construction work and cement work. Carrying stones and it was manual work. It was not so much punishment if you got enough food.

T: Tell me about the food at Auschwitz.

G: The food in Auschwitz was a kind of soup. The first two weeks was a thick soup and it was filling and decent of bread. Maybe three people would divide up one piece of bread. As time went on it was four people then five people to one piece of bread. By the time I left the camp it was 18 people to one piece of bread and the soup got thinner and thinner.

T: When did you arrive in Auschwitz?

G: I arrived in Auschwitz in August of 1944.

T: The Germans kept it quiet that Auschwitz was an extermination camp.

G: We did not know it. Maybe the American intelligence knew it or the partisans knew it.

T: What was your average day in Auschwitz?

G: We would get up very early in the morning, maybe 5 or 6 in the morning and be outside the barracks and they would count us for two hours, rain, no snow, no matter then take us out to work in columns. Inside the camp we would have to do all kinds of work, pick up little things and keep the camp clean. From that point on they would take people out to other camps. They would advertise they wanted people for a transport going to Germany. They wanted people from 18 to 22 then it was 22 to 32 or whatever. They may have an order for people from other camps. This is how they sent people to Dachau. My uncle kept pushing me to get out because they were burning people. Maybe they needed 500 people to burn today and if they didn’t arrive, they would drag them. He was always telling me to get out. Wherever there was a group going out I would stay with that group and maybe they only needed 300 or 400 people for the transport and may 600 showed up.

T: What type of sleeping quarters did you have in Auschwitz?

G: We had beds next to each other with some straw on these platforms.

T: Any reason why you were sent from Auschwitz to Dachau?

G: I wanted to get out of there and they needed people to go to Germany to work. They didn’t have enough workers. All the soldiers were fighting on the Russian front and they had slaves to do their jobs.

T: How did you travel from Auschwitz to Dachau?

G: Also by train, the same way. At that time we were hoping we would be in a better situation.

T: Was Dachau better?

G: Actually not but you had a better chance to survive. They didn’t have the gas chambers and did not gas people. The shooting of the people was not as frequent. There were 20 or 25 little camps around Dachau that were under the supervision of Dachau. I was in various camps that were branches of Dachau. I guess it was coincidence that I went to the camp and got on the transport.

T: Did you have any trouble getting on the transport [at Auschwitz]?

G: No. I was eliminated twice not to go. The only thing in Dachau a lot of people died from hunger and a lot died from beating. I myself got 25 on my back.

T: What did you do?

G: We went for bread coming back from the night shift and the bread didn’t arrive. They sent out about 30 of us and had to pull these wagons and go for bread. When we got back they missed four breads so they started searching everybody and couldn’t find anything and we had to turn out our pockets and they found a crumb of bread in my pocket. They had to show an example and it was a very, very bad situation to get 25 beatings with a stick.

T: Were you aware of the uprising in Lachva?

G: No, I was in not involved in the uprisings because I was always interned in a confined place

T: Did you have any news of how the war was progressing?

G: That is something we used to get from some of the German soldiers. They were the SS and the regular Army. These were more or less older people and had to serve the guy that always walked with us to work and he himself always wanted to go home to mama and he was probably 60 years old. He had a rifle and telling us it was not going to last much longer because the Russians were here and the Americans were over there and the British are here. That particular guy was hoping any day this would be over with home. The SS, the people who were very faithful to Hitler thought they would survive and get rid of al the people. There is one thing that is forgotten or overlooked on thing. Hitler started with the Jews and one day he would have eliminated all the Jews and they would have to get to other people. These crematoriums were in place and everything was going well for them. They were organized. They would maybe get to the Italians then get to everybody that didn’t have blue eyes or not maybe blonde or maybe because you had a moustache you might be eliminated. This is what we have to understand, this was an elimination of any people who would against the totalitarian type of government that Hitler built up. In other words it was Deutschland Uber Alles, German over all and Germany had to rule the world. He wasn’t satisfied with Poland. He wanted to go into Russia then he would have gotten to the British then gotten to America and he would have gotten to the whole world and he would have kept on killing people. The war cost 20 or 25 million people.

T: What was the reaction of the German soldiers to you?

G: Some of them were very nice and some not nice. The ones that were really bad were the SS. They were the ones that fulfilled the duty and maybe get promoted that they showed they killed more people or came up with a faster way to gas people or kill people.

T: You were in Dachau how long?

G: I was in Dachau until liberation. I jumped the train the 27th of April.

T: How did you jump the train?

G: When the American Army started coming closer and closer we could hear the activity of heavy guns and that was in Bavaria and the Germans got worried and they had to move us out someplace. The big thing was to destroy everything around them so nobody would see what happened. After a while they couldn’t do that because of the American Army. They did clean out our camp and put us in wagons and we rode all night long and didn’t get anyplace because the lines were busy with moving the army and everything was confused. This was just a week or two before the war ended. We were going up and down and they wanted to take us to Tyrol. I don’t know why they wanted to take us to Tyrol, maybe they would escape the Army. As the American Army advanced the Germans got very panicky in a way and there was no way that they could get us to anyplace. We were number 2 and the Army was number 1 and wanted to take us with them. Unfortunately the American flyers came in and started bombing our train not knowing we were there. The anti aircraft guns were on the train and the British and American planes came in. The Germans opened the doors and we jumped the train. We lost that day 185 of our people from the British and American attacks. The intent was not to shoot at us.

T: Did they know you were in the cars?

G: I don’t know but there are three mass graves where they buried all the people. Then the fighting stopped and they wanted to get us back on the

train and go on but we started running. There were about 3,000 or 4,000 people on that train. At that time I weighed about 96 pounds. In another two or three weeks I don’t know if I would have survived and my uncle and a friend carried me. We had to walk 2 or 3 kilometers and stopped at the first house and told them to go on, I would stay and take my chance. That family was very nice to us and knew what was happening and were took us in and they were hiding us. The next day the SS came in and told them they wanted hidden people but we were in the haystack.

T: If the Germans found someone hiding in the house what happened?

G: They risked their lives at that time. Various people said they had to do or get punished by someone else. I am very thankful to those people and have visited them.

T: I heard they were doing experiments on people.

G: Yes. They would freeze people to see how they unfreeze. They would put a man and woman together to stimulate them. They would cut off limbs and put pieces on. I am not familiar with that, I didn’t see it. These people were slaves and they didn’t care.

T: When did you see your first American?

G: The American I saw was May 1.

T: Where was this?

G: This was in Petsinhausen in the house where I was hiding. The people that were hiding us also had a brother hiding in the house. Apparently the Americans knew about the brother because he was in the underground. When the first tank came into that town they stopped and they asked for him. When they came in we were still scared and didn’t know if it was for real but he put his revolver on the table and gave it to them. We knew he was there but did not know who he was. He was hiding in that area for about 2 years. It was at night when the first patrols came in and knew what they were doing. The next day the whole was out and the Americans were walking around and I guess we were liberated.

T: If I may ask, what is your worst memory of Auschwitz and Dachau?

G: I went back to some of these places. I even went to the place where I worked at Dachau. It was tunnel built for the 1,000 year Reich. It was never finished but was finished when NATO took it over. It is stockpiled with missiles and other things. I was invited back and they were very nice because I helped build it. You ask the worst memory, I may myself, at what point was I at the brink of being dead or alive and it was a matter of seconds. I think the aftershock was tremendous because everything is lost, your family and relatives and friends are not there. That was a tremendous shock. I think when I got the 25 whips on my back. This fellow got his 25 and he had to bend over and I had to sit on his head. When I got my 25 he had to sit on my head. For weeks and weeks I couldn’t lay on my back. I didn’t want to tell any one and we went to a shower one day and someone asked what was on my back and I told the story. There were no good days. Even Sunday when we had a day of rest they would get us out in the camp and we had to pick up all the little stones. All there was were little stones. This was their aim to aggravate us. We had the stripped jacket and we had to put them on backwards and had to bend over all day long and if you lift your head you got a whip over your head. We had to stay down and pick up these little stones. When everything was done they said they didn’t need the stones piled up there and we had to take them and spread them out. The worst thing was to stay in camp. You were better off going someplace to work. We didn’t get that kind of treatment. We worked either in a farm or in a factory and they could not disrupt it with beating someone. The guy running the factory was interested in production. We would walk about an hour and a half to work and after that we would work. Most of my work in the Dachau area was carrying cement on my back in that bunker. My back was sore.

T: How big was that bunker?

G: Huge you can drive in with trucks and trains. It was 97 feet from the bottom to the top of the ceiling. The width of it was very huge, I couldn’t even describe the whole concept of it because there were to be factories in there. The walls were 3 meters thick and on top 3 or 4 meters of dirt. It was deep underground. The 97 feet to the top was not even level with the ground and we lost a lot of people there. The cement was pumped and some people slipped and they were lost in the cement and we could not save them. There are quit a few people buried in that cement.

T: What was your reaction when you saw your first American?

G: If I would say we were thankful is an understatement. It must never happen again and was like a dream. We were surprised to see the Americans or anyone.

T: How did the Americans treat you?

G: Fantastic. They brought food and brought everything. They made sure everything was taken care of. A friend of mine that was in the camp with me had his head split in the camp and when they saw him he was taken straight to the hospital.

T: How was Hitler, the Nazis and the SS able to do this?

G: I think at the time when Hitler came to power he promised them a greater Germany. Propaganda, Goebles and Goering and this bunch of bandits. They had enough support from the German people to do it. They had the Hitler Youth and they put in a lot of hate into them and told them they were the best race and the others were not supposed to live on this earth, you are supposed to be the master race. It was not a process that was done immediately. It got worse and worse. The height of the extermination was 1943 and 1944 when things were not going well.

T: What did you after you were liberated?

G: I was a kid, I was 19. My personal feeling that I could not blame all Germans for what happened. I can either go out and kill a lot of them and take revenge or go the direction I did go and help to build a better relationship in this world. I go back to Germany and it is hard sometime to see someone and wonder if this was the man that beat me up or killed my mother than I realize he is only 30 years old and wasn’t even born. The German people can never make it good there is no restitution. They just cannot pay for a life that was killed, you cannot pay for a child that was killed then you talk about millions and millions of people. In one way or another someone in every family had someone involved in this. When the war was over you couldn’t find a Nazi but you had to have all these people to do this. I go to Germany and realize these young people were not involved but it a burden that guy has to carry for his nation. The German philosophy of being the superior race has never vanished. They still think they are smarter then the Italians or the French. They might be very democratic and not want another holocaust they still think they are better. A united Germany would be a disaster. A military power would be a very bad thing.

T: What made you come to the United States?

G: I had to build a new future. I married in Bremen, Germany in 1946 and came in under the Truman Doctrine. I thought there was no future in Germany but there was in America. A man can speak his mind and do what he wants as long as he doesn’t break the law.

T: Did you return to Poland after the war?

G: No but I have been back for business. I have taken two of my sons and taken one of them to Auschwitz. I asked him if he could happen again and he said yes, if it happed before it can happen again. When you go through Auschwitz and see the glasses and the hair. When the people go to the gas chamber, what do you do with the eyeglasses? There is a large pile.

T: Was it difficult to go back?

G: Yes. It is very personal. I could not see myself taking a picture and neither could my son. The hardest thing is how could all this happen. I cannot blame people that cannot understand it. You cannot visualize unless you are there.

T: Why did you move to Oklahoma?

G: When I was in Germany, I met a very nice American in the CIC. This was about six weeks after the war. He told me if I came to America to look him up. I did come to America and did look him up. He started a business and helped him in New York. He called me up and asked if I wanted to work for him. He had a fabric retail business for the home. I took a vacation and tried it. I told him that once I learned the business I was going to open my own business. I thought maybe upstate New York. He wanted me to go in business with him and we laid plans to go west and he came to Kansas City and Tulsa and came here. I came here five years before he did. We made enough income so two families could live. We are today one of the largest companies of this type in the United States. Oklahoma is a very good place to start a business because you can ship every direction. In July it will be 34 years here.

T: Describe the trip from Germany to the United States.

G: We came on the Ernie Pyle, a liberty ship. We arrived Jan. 16, 1947 and hit by one of the worst storms that hit the Atlantic. It was a very rough trip here. I came here and didn’t know one word. When we did arrive, there was an organization that helped us.

T: Did you come through Ellis Island?

G: No, we came straight to New York. We had all the tests in Germany and we had a piece of paper that we had passed all the tests.

T: Did you pass the Statue of Liberty?

G: Yes.

T: When you saw the Statue of Liberty, what was your reaction?

G: It was January and these were the most emotional times of your life. You can perhaps get a new life and it is freedom and the opportunity. It is very emotional and breath taking. You all of a sudden you are a human being and people are taking you in and the statue is in the right place that gives the people that wonderful feeling. It is very hard to explain.

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